Educating the public on the intersection of the death penalty and severe mental illness.

Monday, May 5, 2008

New Grant for Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense

The State Justice Institute has awarded the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense $90,000 to analyze how three Texas counties -- Dallas, Tarrant, and Travis -- serve defendants with mental illness, in order to determine whether a statewide process should be implemented. From the TX Task Force press release:"Working with the Office of Court Administration, the Task Force will use study model programs that have been piloted in Dallas, Tarrant and Travis counties. From the study, a joint project with the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M University and the National Center for State Courts, the Task Force will develop a proposal for a statewide approach to work with offenders who suffer from mental illnesses."According to Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals and Task Force chair, 'This study will make recommendations that can help courts identify mentally ill persons in the court system and more effectively address, as appropriate to the particular case, the mental health needs of this population.'

Last year Judge Keller created a Mental Health Task Force to address the courts’ problems with mentally ill people in criminal proceedings. The Mental Health Task Force is part of a national project to improve how the mentally ill are handled in the criminal justice system.

'This project is a unique opportunity nationally to develop evidence-based practices for public defense systems to more effectively divert mentally ill offenders from further involvement with the justice system,' said Dr. Tony Fabelo, research director of the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments and a leader of the project’s advisory committee." See http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tfid/pdf/PRmentalhealthstudySJI.pdf for more information.(Source: Consensus Project Newsletter May 2008)

Contributors

Facts about Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

· The State of Texas ranks 47th nationally in terms of per capita spending on mental healthcare, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It ranks 1st in executions (more than 400 since 1982).

· Around 30 percent of those incarcerated in Texas prison or jails have been clients of the state’s public mental health system. (TX Department of Criminal Justice)

· The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for people with mental retardation, but it has not excluded offenders with severe mental illness from this punishment. Texas law also does not adequately protect those with diminished capacity from a death sentence.

· At least 20 individuals with documented diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other persistent and severe mental illnesses have been executed by the State of Texas. Many had sought treatment before the commission of their crimes, but were denied long-term care.